Did that Detox Bath really work?!

So I realized this weekend that Alexandra wasn't suffering from allergies but was likely suffering from a cold. And before you're all HORRIBLE PARENT ALERT let me just explain myself and put the blame entirely on my toddler: she is always SO upbeat and jolly, that it's hard to tell when she's ill. The only time I've been like "Oh ok, yeah, she is totally sick" is when she was vomiting all over me. That was an easy one.

Yes, she had a runny nose and was sneezing, but so were Todd and I; allergies reign over here for all of spring and some of summer. It's a bitch, really, because I have NEVER had allergies in all my life. But two years ago Tucson was all "yeah, you've been here long enough, it is time for PAIN."

Anyways, the way I found out that Alex was likely sick with a cold was that I started feeling like shit on Saturday. The itchy nasty sensation in the back of the throat? Yeah, I owned that Saturday night and Sunday morning. So Sunday morning, badass that I am (I guess Alex gets it from me), I threw my corned beef and cabbage together, popped that puppy in the oven and went to the grocery store to get the stuff I needed for a detox bath I read about on Pinterest.

Oh, Pinterest. We're like Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, where once there was mutual disregard and dislike, now we're practically banging each other in public.

Anyways (if I pulled the data I bet this word actually beats out Shit, Fuck and Goddamn in my blog posts), I needed epsom salts and more baking soda and ginger to complete the ingredient list. I had already purchased tea tree oil and lavender oil at the hippie dippy store over the weekend. Then I came home, cleaned the tub and got ready for some serious detoxing.

For those who hate clicking links, the recipe goes as such:

a tub of hot water
two cups or more epsom salts (unless you're under 100lbs, then it's less and then you just go click that damn link yourself)
one cup baking soda
1 tbsp - 1/3 cup ginger -- I went with 1 tbsp to be on the safe side since you can have a sensitivity to it
20 drops or so of any oils you'd like. I did lavender and tea tree oil, obviously.

Swish that shit around and pop yourself in for forty minutes. Yes. Almost an hour. The first twenty minutes are to sweat out the toxins and the last twenty minutes are to absorb the minerals. I did it and I can tell you one thing, it's been at LEAST however old Alex is since I've just lingered in a tub. The last time I just lingered like that was when I was laboring at home. So, three years ago, almost.

It was sort of awesome, sort of boring. Women's Health, Vanity Fair and Parenting helped but two out of three of those magazines sort of suck and sometimes all three of them do. Plus Alex kept coming in and poking me and dipping her hands in the water, but that was sort of awesome too.

Anyways, after my forty minutes were up, and you can rest assured that I had a goddamn clock in there with me so I didn't have to sit in there a minute more, I carefully stood up and, as the wiki how page warned, I did feel light headed and sort of woozy. I had brought a huuuge thing of water with me and I think I drank too much of it, because I also felt sort of nauseated. I just felt sort of strange afterwards. That's the only word for it, really.

I also felt flushes of heat all throughout the day, sweating one moment and then feeling fine the next. I took an afternoon catnap on Todd's lap and went to bed that night worried about how sick I'd be for work the next day; I had taken a day off the week before and was determined not to do it again. The next morning on Monday, I woke up and... I felt fine. Absolutely normal, no sickness, no aches and pains like I usually do in the first stages of a cold. The itchy nasty tickle in my throat? Gone. No congestion, no stuffiness.

Was it just a super light cold? I don't think so. Alex is still talking with a super stuffed up voice and her chi is far more vigorous than mine. Really, the only thing I did was take Advil early on Sunday morning, and then do my detox bath at 10:45am. But by early the next morning, any remnants of a cold were absolutely gone.

So, I can't say with any certainty that it worked, but... Did it? If you're not feeling well or just want to tell your spouse and kid(s) that you are NOT AVAILABLE for 40 minutes, I'd give it a try. Just don't chug too much water.

Grisly Gluten. :(

So yesterday Alex and I went to the museum with a friend of mine and her adorable daughter, then met up with an other girlfriend and her adorable daughter (must have more babies immediately, they were that cute). For lunch, we hit up Sauce which is a delicious little restaurant serving Italian fare, and I was eager to get my grub on for a yummy cheat meal.

If you read this blog with any regularity you know that I have been trying to stay away from them. I did Paleo for a couple of weeks and then switched to Primal because wine and parmesan. Wine and parmesan. Mmm. But in order to keep myself sane I let myself have a cheat meal about once a week. Twice if you count that piece of Chompies everything toast I had the other day.

Now here is the difference between that piece of toast and my bread roll, thin crust pizza slice, bites of Alex's mac and cheese experience at Sauce: Pain. Horrible, crampy, something died in your gut kind of pain. Hurrah, I'm gluten intolerant! 

I didn't even go all out like I had intended, thanks to my friends who ordered salads (God, ladies, way to keep me reined in). I had intentions of a big bowl of pasta, or maybe my very own pizza, or maybe a PANIIIIIIINI. But THANK GOD for the salad I ordered because had I eaten any more than I did, I think I would have died right there outside the store on the sidewalk.

I'm not going to get into any sort of gross detail, but it was remarkable, how fast and how long the inflammation lasted. It sort of blew my mind, to be honest and even Todd was taken aback by the severity of the reaction. He didn't even think I should have worked out last night (I did, and I owned it), because it had KO'd me so thoroughly.

Anyways, I don't know what to think about this. Last Sunday for the cheat meal we made a big mess of pasta and yep, I had stomach pains after. But nothing so severe as yesterday. The pain lasted SIX HOURS. Oh my God. Ugh. Fucking gluten, man. What the hell.

One thing I'm glad for though is that the withdrawals during my first couple of weeks of going Paleo are gone. I don't really think about it anymore unless I'm planning a cheat meal (and now that will forever be different), and I'm more than happy to load up a leaf of butter lettuce with anything from scrambled eggs with cheddar and ham or guacamole and leftover steak. It's no big deal.

But now this pain, this reaction my body is having to a food I used to eat all the time, is making me question whether I should be feeding Alexandra this stuff anymore. Now, I know that there are a lot of studies out there saying this rampant, widespread villainizing of gluten is overblown and unnecessary. But my reaction, my body's loud protest, was very real, and before I had never thought I even had a problem. If I had any discomfort, I don't remember it. Nothing stands out. But now that I've gotten my body off the stuff, ouch.

So, yeah. I tried a few weeks ago to give her a trail mix instead of her go-to favorite of Cheerios mixed with goldfish crackers and she was like WHAT IS THIS BASIC ASS SHIT and refused to eat it. But I think I may keep trying, perhaps with a less shmancy mix than the previous one (sun-dried cranberries are lost on a toddler I guess).  All I know is, the pain I felt was my body telling me something about the food I ate, and it wasn't a happy message.

Of course, tomorrow we're supposed to have Italian with friends and already I'm sort of thinking about how delicious lasagna is. I heard once that humans are the only animals that will return to a food that treated them unkindly, and I guess I am not only a human but the president of humans as well. Mmm, lasagna.

Humble Pie. But I can't have pie. :(

So I don't think I mentioned it on here since I only posted like twice during my epic two-week-long vacation, but over the holidays my brother in law's wife's family (say that three times fast) came down with epic colds, and then passed the joy on to my brother in law, sister in law, mother in law and at last, my dear sweet husband. Alexandra and I were total badasses and didn't get sick.

Then, this past weekend, Friday I believe it was, Alexandra got sick. My poor baby! Froggy little voice, occasional cough and the most darling, cutey-wutey requests for "I need to blow my nose." But still, I reigned supreme in the world of immunity. I was kicking ass! An Emergen-C here, an orange there, and I'd be fine.

I went to yoga yesterday. It was hot and smelly like yoga in Tucson should be, which has nothing to do with this current tale except I just wanted to share how smelly and hot it was because come ON yoga studio, it was 65 yesterday, was a heater necessary after 329748 people did yoga in there all day long? My class was at 4pm so I kind of pondered that in down dog, ass in the air: whose bodies am I still smelling right now? Whose collective BO and BTUs am I currently wallowing in? I'm surprised I didn't barf.

Anyways. It sort of descended on me yesterday in that yoga class. The ticklish, scratchish throat. The hallmark of an oncoming cold, the appetizer to the meal of suck that is on its way, the um, the avant garde, um. Oh fuck it, the first fucking sign that you're going to be sick and it's going to suck and you might as well just give up.

And today, a MONDAY! YAY! it has descended. I am sick, and I feel stupid for being all, God I'm awesome, sorry you're sick! HAHAHAHAH! I RULE. Oh well. And then, thanks to yoga, I'm extremely sore which, when added to already present body aches, really drives in the fact that yep, asshole, you're sick and you are going to feel like shit for days!

So, yeah. Humble pie. I'm a mortal after all. Now if I could only actually eat pie before February 4th.